President of the Tennis Association of T&T Jermille Danclair believes that the national team stands a good chance of advancing to the American Zone Group III when it enters the 2011 Davis Cup at the Club de Tenis in Santa Cruz, Bolivia from Thursday to Saturday. Currently ranked 124th in the world, T&T will join Panama (114th) and the US Virgin Islands (125th) in a depleted American Zone Group IV, which will be without Cuba (108th), Bermuda (120th) and St Lucia, who pulled out for financial reasons. In order to advance to Group III for the 2012 tournament, the team will need to place in the top two. Under the supervision of coach/captain Lennox Francis, T&T will be represented by BG T&T Tranquility Open champion Yohansey Williams, fellow Tobagonian Vaughn Wilson and the American-based Liam Gomez, who attends Auburn University.
The squad was originally set to comprise of Williams, Gomez and brothers Shane and Troy Stone with Wilson as reserve. The role of the Stone brothers was to take the doubles work load from the singles players (Williams and Gomez), who are usually the first option to play doubles as well. However, because of the withdrawal of the three countries and the TATT's limited financial resources, it was decided that adjustments should be made. Wilson has been selected to play doubles with Williams, with whom he won the Tranquility Open Men's Doubles title earlier this year. Members of the team have been in training over the past two weeks at the St James and Tranquility Tennis Clubs. Speaking to the Guardian yesterday, Danclair said he expected the trio to have a successful run in Bolivia. "We have always had good results against the US Virgin Islands and have competed well against Panama," he pointed out. "We have a very good team and our players have always done well on clay."
